


a fireside chat

by apotheosizing



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls II
Genre: Dark Souls-Typical Vagueness, Dramatic Irony, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotheosizing/pseuds/apotheosizing
Summary: The bearer of the curse encounters the scholar of the first sin at the bonfire of Aldia's Keep.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	a fireside chat

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't believe there were only 6 fics on this site involving Aldia and always thought it was odd that, despite being siblings-in-law, Nashandra and Aldia never acknowledged each other even in passing, so here's a little thing born of those two thoughts

The bearer of the curse was exhausted. She was out of Estus and her reserves of lifegems and grass were running thin. The treacherous path through the mist-choked forests that surrounded the castle had been made no easier by the ambushes of invisible bandits. With each step she took in the accursed place, she cursed her refusal to pay heed to her mother's insistence that she have basic training with a weapon. Were she armed with a dagger, she would at least be able to swing blindly with the hope of hitting one of her assailants by pure chance.

It took all that remained of her flagging will to slip the ring she had salvaged from the mausoleum of the king onto her finger, allowing passage through the gates that she prayed marked the end of attacks she could do nothing to combat. She could have sobbed from relief when the strange music of the bonfire reached her ears. The distant part of her that retained the training of the finest Melfian academies considered idly that the shrine beneath the castle had been filled likewise with choruses of music like the halls of the churches. If she was more coherent at the time, she was certain the fragmented observation would have led to considerations of a new theoretical framework for the nature of magic but, as things stood, her shook herself to focus and dragged herself to the bonfire.

At her touch, the flames of the coiled sword sprung to life and then exploded in a burst of heat and force that flung her to the damp grass underfoot. She grumbled out an "One of these days you're going to break something doing that" as the swirling flame of the bonfire coalesced into the familiar form of the scholar. She could have sworn she heard a chuckle from him at her complaint.

"Young hollow, if the ring on your finger is any indication, it seems you have met Vendrick." She provided no response as she leaned her staff against the crumbling walls of the structure that surrounded the bonfire. Nor when she set her Estus flask at the edge of the flame that it might catch the flurry of embers it produced before sitting at the edge of the bonfire. She had found from prior meetings that the scholar was content to fill her silence. "You have seen for yourself the outcome of his failure. Knowing the potential consequences, will you keep to your path?"

She closed her eyes with a shuddering sigh, the image of the hollow king shambling purposelessly in his prison pressed into the back of her eyelids like traces of a haunting. "Yes," came the simple reply. Before he could continue, the bearer of the curse turned the tables. "You know, you and the queen... you both told me to search for Vendrick. Did the two of you send me to find him for the same reason?"

In the faded splendour of the throne room, the way the same sardonic edge ringed Nashandra's instructions to seek the king as it had the scholar's did not escape her notice. Nor did the fact that she had not heard a word about the living queen of Drangleic until she had chanced upon the ghost of the chancellor. She was growing weary of stumbling through the dark at the whims of those who would not illuminate the path before her more than a few short steps at a time.

The scholar did not answer her for so long a time that she presumed he was not going to. She shifted as little as possible from her hard-won resting place to peer into the depths of the flask, knowing full well it would be nowhere near filled after mere moments of proximity to the bonfire. "The queen of Drangleic seeks power. I am in search of answers," he said, at last.

The bearer of the curse glanced up, a scoff tumbling from her lips. "She's the queen. What greater power could she want?" It was a petulant thing to say, having observed outright how neither king nor queen had been able to prevent the devastation that had befallen their kingdom, though she could not help herself from saying it.

"She can neither inherit nor destroy this kingdom. The throne casts long shadows over this stage, shadows from which many coveters spring. But only a descendant of the Dark can shift the light it casts - or snuff it out. That is the danger those who abhor darkness fear." There was something of melancholy in the scholar's words, though she could not call it pity. She settled on resignation.

"It sounds to me as though the two of you have the same problem, in the end," she observed.

The scholar laughed, a hollow, ironic sound that held no mirth at all. "Perhaps we do, young hollow. Near this spot lies the keep of one who failed to escape the weight of fate. Once you have traversed it, we will speak again."

There was a great rumble in the earth as the fire of the scholar's form shrunk back into the bonfire's light like a tide in reverse and, in a blink, he was gone. Assured of her safety in vicinity of the bonfire, she slipped into dreams of shadow puppetry backlit by the flame's light.


End file.
